After 36 hours of snowfall, Canadians are saying that there is just “too much snow.” The snow was so high, it blocked most residents’ doors and garages. In the attached videos, doorbell camera captures a lapsed video showing a home in St. Johns being buried under the heavy snowfall. People in that city had to dig out their yards after a record 76.2 centimeters fell. There have been no reports of injuries, though some had to be evacuated from their homes in the outer area of St. John’s because of an avalanche. A state of emergency remains in effect for St. John’s, with winds still howling at more than 90 kilometers an hour. The premier of Newfoundland has formally asked the federal government for assistance, including mobilizing the armed forces.

Gun-rights activists — some making deliberate displays of their military-style rifles — began to descend on Virginia’s capital city Monday to protest plans by the state’s Democratic leadership to pass gun-control legislation. Several thousand activists — mostly white and male, many clothed in camouflage and waving flags with messages of support for President Donald Trump — appeared hours before the 11 a.m. rally was set to begin. Gov. Ralph Northam declared a temporary state of emergency days ahead of the rally, banning all weapons, including guns, from the event on Capitol Square.

Four people were seriously hurt after a gas tanker exploded in the Northern Israel. It happened as a gas station in the industrial city of Tamra, and the force of the explosion was felt miles away. Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah Volunteers rushed to the scene and treated 4 victim with serious burns. They were rushed to the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. The fire department responded and brought the blaze under control quickly. An investigation is underway into what caused the explosion. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

YWN regrets to inform you of the sudden Petira of Hgaon HaRav Pesach Eliyahu Falk ZATZAL, the world-renowned Posek from Gateshead, U.K. He suffered a massive heart attack on Monday. He was 77. Rav Falk was a talmid, and a Magid Shiur at Gateshead Yeshiva as well as the Bais Chaya Rochel Seminary in Gateshead. He wrote many well-known Seforim including Oz V’hadar Levushah, in English, Modesty: An Adornment for Life, Shailos Utshuvos Machazeh Eliyahu, Zachor V’Shamor, and other Seforim. The Niftar was one of the first people to start an “Avos Ubanim” learning program, which has since spread to nearly every community and Shul around the globe. His sudden passing is a huge shock and major loss for the U.K. Jewish communities.

Menachem Segel, a Lubavitcher chassid from Lod, was in Ramat Gan on Tuesday at a retail store, one of his work clients. He was busy working on the store’s computer when an elderly man approached him and said hello in Yiddish, the Hebrew news site COL reported. Segel was busy so after returning the man’s greeting he tried to return to his work but the man obviously needed to talk and he told Segel his life story. The man was born to Holocaust survivors in a refugee camp in Germany in 1946 to the well-known Vitznitzer Tessler family. When he was 13, his parents sat down with him and explained what happened to them and their families during the Holocaust.

Kings, crown princes, presidents, prime ministers and other world leaders are arriving in Israel this week to attend the World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem on Thursday, marking the 75th year since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The gathering of world leaders poses a huge security challenge for Israel’s security forces, the third-largest gathering since the funerals of Shimon Peres in 2016 and Yitzchak Rabin in 1995. Some of the most notable leaders who will attend the forum are US Vice President Mike Pence, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Prince Charles of Britain, who are all slated to deliver a speech at the forum.

Two weeks ago, Berlin’s frum community joined the world in celebrating the Siyum HaShas. This week, the world joined Berlin in celebrating the LOMED Siyum Mishnayos. Kahal Adass Jisroel of Berlin is the largest frum community in Germany, with about 80 shomer Shabbos families. Germany is home to some 120,000 yidden, following only France and England with the third-largest Jewish population in Europe. Only a small percentage of those are observant, but for those who are, the community in Berlin serves as the epicenter; the core of strong Yiddeshkeit from which even those further away can gain. Many move to Berlin from other cities when their children reach school-age, to provide them with a proper Torah education.

IDF forces reportedly attacked a Hamas terror position in the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon after incendiary balloons exploded over a home in the southern town of Sderot, Arabs news outlets reported. The IDF did not yet confirm the attack. The explosion in Sderot, which fortunately did not result in any injuries, is the latest in a series of incendiary balloons that landed in Israel over the last five days. The launching of the terror balloons, which in the past has burned thousands of acres of Israeli fields, has largely stopped in the last half-year. Additionally, four mortar shells were fired into Israel on Wednesday, breaking a several-month period of relative calm on the Gaza-Israel border. On Shabbos, a bunch of balloons was spotted in a public park in Sderot.

A Ynet investigative report published on Sunday revealed that almost a third of IDF candidates receive exemptions every year from serving in the army. The high number of exemptions is mainly due to a dramatic rise in exemptions for mental health reasons. The report added that apart from the rising number of exemptions, an average of another 15% of recruits drop out during their service, which means that close to half of all young Israelis are not serving or completing army service. IDF exemptions for mental health reasons have been rising dramatically for years, from 4.5% five years ago to an expected 8.3% in 2020, which means that thousands of potential IDF soldiers, most of whom don’t actually have mental health issues, are not drafted into the IDF.

Adolfo Cardenas smiles faintly at the memory of traveling with his 14-year-old son from Honduras to the U.S.-Mexico border in only nine days, riding buses and paying a smuggler $6,000 to ensure passage through highway checkpoints. Father and son walked about 10 minutes in Arizona’s stifling June heat before surrendering to border agents. Instead of being released with paperwork to appear in immigration court in Dallas, where Cardenas hopes to live with a cousin, they were bused more than an hour to wait in the Mexican border city of Mexicali. “It was a surprise. I never imagined this would happen,” Cardenas, 39, said while waiting at a Mexicali migrant shelter for his fifth court appearance in San Diego, on Jan. 24.